Copied information on profile

Question

I'm not sure what to do with this, but I'm open to suggestions and willing to help. I was working on the DD project of the week to fix issues with 5-star profiles when I came across the profile of Leo Buscaglia. There are thousands of words attributed to his nephew that look copied from somewhere and none of the sources are adequate for this information.

I tried putting some phrases from the text into Google to see if I could identify a source, no luck.

Comments

In the profile of the nephew, that is credited with the text, it says he was working on the family genealogy at the time of his death, so seems likely that this text is part of the profile he was creating for his uncle, and distributed within the family.

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I think the biographical work might be found at My Heritage [membership required ] 

i.e. https://www.myheritage.com/index.php?tr_id=m_ctqoror4tn_4cjcp8kbdt&utm_source=partner_wikitree&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=wikitree_apr20&tr_funnel=data

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When I go to that MH link it doesn't get me to the source. I have an account but it is the free version. Might be the problem?

Answer 1

I'm surprised you didn't find any of the phrases in Google since the account (obviously) exists here in WT and Google certainly indexes WT. I put the first sentence into Google, and the first hit was his WT profile.

I see nothing wrong with the account since it was written by an eye witness. It's a presumptively reliable secondary source.

It's also appropriately sourced, with a birth index and social security record as well as a FG reference. It wouldn't hurt to add sources, if they can be found, but the profile is fine as it is, IMO.

I don't think other genealogical sites are sources for profiles, although it doesn't hurt to put them in the See also section.

Comments

I should have said didn't find any source on Google other than Wikitree.

How do we know it was written by the nephew? Where is the proof? I don't know but in my experience, this is plagiarism at worst, as credit isn't appropriately cited to the author and it appears copied word for word, thousands of words. Even with a citation, we don't copy like that - that is the basic rule we learned in grade school. This information must exist somewhere other than on Wikitree and that would be the correct source. It also could be fiction - someone could have made the whole story up and I'm not talking about the nephew. I know that is unlikely but that is one of the key reasons we source with citations.

The basic profile has sources, but the 3,700 words of supposed recollections from the nephew need a source.

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I think I misunderstood what your concern was. My suggestion would be to DM the profile manager and ask her where she got the information and ask her to properly attribute it.

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Will do. I was willing to clean it up, make notes instead of copying, and cite the source. But since I can't find it, I'll contact the PM as you suggested.

Answer 2

It is sourced as it states clearly who wrote the biography. The fact that you cannot find his story anywhere else is further proof it is his story. In most contexts, writing about personal conversations does not require you to use citations according to the APA Style. Because the reader cannot independently look up these sources, it is inappropriate to include them on a reference list.

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/personal-communications.

Answer 3

I ran the entire text through Grammerly's plagiarism checker. It found no plagiarism. It does appear this is an original work written by his nephew.

However, as interesting as it is, it is written much more as an unsourced memoir, and less as a proper WikiTree bio. As such, I have left it intact, but moved it to a "Research Notes" section. I have also added a very brief bio in the biography section (more of an introduction than anything). Others may now develop his biography as they desire.  

- David Randall, Notables Project Leader

Comments

Addendum: Presuming this is indeed the nephew's story, it is important to keep it intact. This is another reason for moving the memoir to a Research Notes section rather than leaving it as the primary biography. The Biography section is subject to editing by the general membership as additional genealogical information is uncovered. Adding such information to the nephew's story would completely destroy any usefulness as a resource.

Given the length of the memoir, an argument could be made for moving it to its own Free Space page.

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Good idea to move it to research notes.

If it was an original work by his nephew, it may not be "published" per se, but it is now "published on WT."

For sourcing it, I'd ask who added the text and where did they get the information. It should be verifiable, even if it means contacting either the person who put the information on Wikitree or the family member who wrote it (the nephew).

Thank you